Somewhat sobering article about a disillusioned collector

[cowboyscowboys]

That's pretty deep whatever makes him happy is the right thing to do. People need balance and priorities he seems to have them in place now.

[Lord Huggington]

Yeah... I think this person was on the extreme end of game collecting. At the end of the day, one needs to balance their time between their hobby and what should obviously be more important (ie. work, school). The writer of this article obviously failed to do this as he said he spent time that should have been used studying to make top 10 lists, and eventually stopped going to school all together so he could focus on his games hobby.

So whose fault is this? His or his game collection? (Hint: It's his) I don't think it's right to say that game collecting in and of itself is a road to ruin. This person certainly didn't know when to stop, so it's probably for the best that he got rid of the collection, but I don't like the underlying tone of the piece suggesting that there is a dark side to amassing a large collection of games. It sort of puts the onus on the notion of collecting, rather than the collector taking responsibility for their own failings here.

Be that as it may, I do hope he does find a happier, more fulfilling future now that he's unloaded his collection, for what it's worth. =/

[benderx]

website down

[ChuChu Flamingo]

More stuff for me.

[Flake]

More stuff for me.

I was going to say the exact same thing.

This guy must have had an entirely unbalanced life - odds are he made a really smart decision to walk away from that level of collecting. Selling everything was probably a knee jerk over-reaction, though.

[Purkeynator]

Crazy fool......hey you don't have any more classics for sale do you?

[saturnfan]

This person has a lot more serious problems than video game collecting, namely antisocial behavior, chronic laziness, low ambition, no self esteem, etc.

I am not sure how "sobering" his article really was, considering it only applies to people who are being held back in life by correctable measures. If selling off his collection quickly helps him be on the road to recovering his life than more power to him. But this shouldn't be seen as a reason to reevaluate your chosen hobbies because this person was mostly suffering from several chemical imbalances way before he knew what a video game was. If anything he should at least be thankful that he chose video games over crack as an escapist.

So I guess what I am getting at is, unless you feel that video collecting is feeding into your numerous social problems you shouldn't read too much into this.

[flamepanther]

I could probably stand to liquidate some things I don't play but somehow haven't been able to part with.

[noiseredux]

it felt a little melodramatic. Like about skipping the prom and all that. It sounds more like the dude isn't upset about collecting, but rather time wasted and experiences missed. Don't get me wrong, I love collecting and playing and all that, but when my wife said she wanted to watch the basketball game with me, I did just that. Y'know?

[RCBH928]

I can relate,
and I have been dedicated to playing videogames only 3 years.

I missed a ton of gaming in my life, a little bit of my childhood been crushed, due to high prices of consoles and games. I simply couldn't buy so many, by the end of 2006 I thought I would go back and play all the good games I missed on(while doing research I found racketboy!)

After sometime I realized I am wasting my life. There are simply just TOO many games, probably more great games than movies to be played, and each game takes about 20x the time you will watch a movie.

Sometimes I feel like its a burden, I want to play Shenmue but I also want to Final Fantasy 7, but Chrono Cross scored a perfect 10 in the reviews, and I wanted to be the original mario bros. on the nes since I was 6 years old, indigo prophecy is interesting, Dream Fall is very unique, Monkey island is one of the best point and click adventures I can't go by without playing this game.

We also should not forget the current great games being pumped out like Mario Galaxy, Gears of War, Uncharted, God of War, Ico, the list goes and on. The publishers are not going easy about it, there is a Call of Duty game EACH year and each year is a game of the highest quality. NFL, Smackdown vs Raw, we already have 2 Fallouts for a 3 year old system(ps3) , and 2 Mario games....its just too much.

I finally decided that the situation is that I will never play the great games out there, no matter how hard I try. So I just keep them when I have time to kick back and relax. I should never let make time for videogames, only when life spares some time for games I will play them.

its really easy for this exciting world to consume you in and make you forget real life. Maybe it can be considered an addiction.

I think we all should remember that this is a hobby, we should do it only when we have free time. More importantly , achievements or higher levels in a game, or putting more hours in is an illusion. It does not reward you with anything, you might as well invest these hours in your real life with your family and career and things that will get you REAL rewards and acknowledgment .


As far as owning libraries of games and collecting.
I think its just a human nature to feel good about owning something even without using it(sealed copies of games), I understand if you love a game , a book , or anything that you want to keep physical copy around forever.
What I don't understand why do people keep buying games and cramming in them, until they reach an amount of games that they will need 3x their life time just to play them, and then they buy some more.

Unless they see it as an investment, its wasting their money and time. They will never use them.